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I am someone who believes that it is forever an option to evolve. My view is you can in fact teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the experienced individual is open-minded and willing to learn. As long as the individual in question is prepared to acknowledge when it was mistaken, and endeavor to transform into a improved version.

Well, admittedly, the metaphor applies to me. And the lesson I am working to acquire, even though I am a creature of habit? It is an important one, something I have struggled with, repeatedly, for my all my days. My ongoing effort … to grow less fearful of the common huntsman. Pardon me, all the other spiders that exist; I have to be realistic about my potential for change as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is large, dominant, and the one I run into regularly. This includes on three separate occasions in the recent past. Inside my home. I'm not visible to you, but I’m shaking my head with discomfort as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “enthusiast” status, but I’ve been working on at least becoming a baseline of normalcy about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders dating back to my youth (unlike other children who are fascinated by them). During my childhood, I had plenty of male siblings around to guarantee I never had to confront any myself, but I still freaked out if one was visibly in the immediate vicinity as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family slumbering on, and attempting to manage a spider that had crawled on to the living room surface. I “handled” with it by standing incredibly far away, practically in the adjoining space (for fear that it ran after me), and spraying a significant portion of bug repellent toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it managed to annoy and irritate everyone in my house.

With the passage of time, whoever I was dating or sharing a home with was, automatically, the least afraid of spiders between us, and therefore responsible for handling the situation, while I emitted low keening sounds and ran away. When finding myself alone, my method was simply to leave the room, douse the illumination and try to forget about its being before I had to re-enter.

Recently, I was a guest at a friend’s house where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who resided within the casement, primarily stationary. In order to be more comfortable with its presence, I conceptualized the spider as a female entity, a girlie, one of us, just lounging in the sun and overhearing us gab. Admittedly, it appears quite foolish, but it was effective (a little bit). Or, the deliberate resolution to become less scared did the trick.

Regardless, I've made an effort to continue. I contemplate all the rational arguments not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I know they eat things like buzzing nuisances (my mortal enemies). I know they are one of the planet's marvelous, benign creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to scuttle like that. They propel themselves in the utterly horrifying and somehow offensive way imaginable. The sight of their many legs propelling them at that frightening pace causes my ancient psyche to go into high alert. They claim to only have eight legs, but I maintain that increases exponentially when they are in motion.

Yet it isn’t their fault that they have unnerving limbs, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – perhaps even more so. My experience has shown that taking the steps of trying not to have a visceral panic reaction and retreat when I see one, working to keep still and breathing, and intentionally reflecting about their good points, has proven somewhat effective.

Just because they are hairy creatures that dart around extremely quickly in a way that haunts my sleep, is no reason for they merit my intense dislike, or my girly screams. I can admit when fear has clouded my judgment and driven by unfounded fear. It is uncertain I’ll ever attain the “scooping one into plasticware and relocating it outdoors” level, but one can't be sure. A bit of time remains within this veteran of life yet.